Elmer E. Ellsworth

Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth (11 April 1837-24 May 1861) was a colonel in the US Army during the American Civil War. He was the first Union officer to die during the war, and the first conspicuous casualty of the war, when he was shot dead while trying to remove a Confederate flag from the roof of an inn in Alexandria, Virginia.

Biography
Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth was born in Malta, New York in 1837, and he grew up in Mechanicsville before relocating to New York City. In 1854, he moved to Rockford, Illinois, and he moved to Chicago to work as a law clerk. In 1860, he relocated to Springfield to work with Abraham Lincoln, and he helped with his successful presidential campaign. In 1861, he raised the 11th New York Infantry (the "Fire Zouaves") from New York City's volunteer firefighting companies, becoming its colonel. On 23 May 1861, when Virginia seceded from the Union, a Confederate flag was raised over the Marshall House Inn in Alexandria, Virginia, and the flag was within view of the White House. Ellsworth led his regiment across the Potomac River and into Alexandria, leading seven men into the inn to tear down the flag. He was led up the staircase by James W. Jackson, the inn's owner, who was pretending to be a boarder; just then, Jackson blasted Ellsworth with a shotgun, killing him. Jackson was then gunned down immediately after Ellsworth's shooting. Ellsworth was the first man to fall for the Union cause.